


The Boy With Two Souls

by Yevynaea



Category: Guardians of Childhood - William Joyce, His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Gen, I don't know what else to tag this as, Minor Character Death, koz and pitch are jamie's daemons, revisiting the daemons thing because i love daemons, yes daemons plural just read it i ain't explaining this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-08
Updated: 2014-04-08
Packaged: 2018-01-18 15:58:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1434313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yevynaea/pseuds/Yevynaea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It shouldn’t be possible, on this everyone agrees, but it’s happened nonetheless and there are rumors everywhere about the boy with two souls. Two male daemons for one little boy and it’s the strangest thing anyone in this hospital has ever encountered."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Boy With Two Souls

 

            Seamus and Jamie Bennett are born on the 17th of July, just before sunrise and almost three weeks before they are due, and the window of the hospital room they are born in looks out over the eastern horizon but there are too many fluffy clouds hanging over the city to see much of the pink sky. Julia Bennett mentally curses her children’s father for not being there, but holds the boys close and cries out of pain and joy and fear that she will not be able to raise them on her own. Her daemon Accipiter would cry with her, if he could; he’s a Northern Harrier who somehow always manages to look small and inconspicuous despite his large size, and Julia doesn’t have to look up to where he’s perched on the headboard of the hospital bed to see that despite their fear his feathers will be puffed out with pride that the two of them have accomplished this together. _Without_ Mr. Bennett.

            Dust settles into vague golden shapes as soon as the boys are born, first looking like owlets, then kittens, then mice, then one changes into what might be a snake while the other becomes what is much too fuzzy to be a butterfly so must be a moth. They’re still just golden Dust, though, which the doctors find worrying. They should’ve solidified by now, one explains to Mrs. Bennett, but as soon as he’s got the words out, they do. Dust turns into striped scales and sharp fangs and it turns into soft wings and thin antennae and there are two daemons that would’ve been proved to be a black king snake and a royal walnut moth, respectively, if there’d been the time for it.

            Instead Seamus’ lungs stop working and it’s a rush to get them going again and there are nurses shouting and trying to save him, and Julia is panicking but little Jamie is panicking more because he doesn’t understand what the noise is about he just wants it to _stop._ Julia has to try and calm her second-born down while his brother is struggling to live and the snake is lying weakly on the blankets of the hospital bed, struggling toward Seamus but not getting anywhere even when the moth stands on the bed ahead of it and flutters its wings encouragingly.

           

            Jamie Bennett is two days old and he is an only child. The moth is now a kitten, golden and noble, and it curls alertly next to Jamie while the boy sleeps in a plastic hospital crib, and next to the gold kitten lays a black one, sleek and silent, but it’s _there_ and it’s _alive_ where it shouldn’t be and no one knows what to do.

            “Seamus’ daemon should’ve dissolved back into Dust.” A doctor says to Mrs. Bennett while his lemur daemon cocks her head curiously at the infant nearby. “But it seems to have instead bonded itself to Jamie.”

            It shouldn’t be possible, on this everyone agrees, but it’s happened nonetheless and there are rumors everywhere about the boy with two souls. Two _male_ daemons for one little boy and it’s the strangest thing anyone in this hospital has ever encountered. Mrs. Bennett hears nurses whispering outside her door during the day but they never dare to say anything to _her_.

            When Accipiter is asked to name Jamie’s daemons the child is awake and happy and there are two tiny foxes on either side of him. Accipiter names the gold one Kozmotis for how he always seems to favor the gold of Dust and stars, and the black one earns the moniker of Pitchiner for how he keeps himself as dark as empty space and tar.

 

            Jamie Bennett is three years old and he holds Kozmotis and Pitchiner close to his chest while he asks his mother why everyone else has only got one daemon. She smiles and replies that not everyone can be as special as Jamie, and the boy is extremely satisfied with this answer, if his grin is anything to go by. The snakes curled around his hands seem to find this to be a good answer too, because they hiss self-satisfactorily at being called special.

 

            Jamie Bennett is five years old and it’s his first day of kindergarten, though his mother only lets him go once she’s called the teacher almost a dozen times to make sure the staff understands the situation. Jamie is nervous but more than that he’s excited, and Koz is a pallid bat and a comforting furry presence against Jamie’s neck while Pitch hides as a big black cricket within Jamie’s hair.

            The five of them get inside, goodbyes are said, and then five becomes three when Mrs. Bennett and Accipiter leave. Jamie puts his backpack down where Ms. Shalazar shows him to, and a snow goose who’s introduced as Kailash watches them from her place on Ms. Shalazar’s desk, and the way the teacher doesn’t even seem to notice the distance between herself and her daemon makes Jamie think that maybe she might be a witch, but he doesn’t say anything about it.

            Jamie notices a few people he recognizes and a few people he doesn’t, but the only person he knows the name of is a boy named Monty and his daemon, Valora. Monty has red glasses and a little bit of a thin voice, and Valora has black eyes and fuzzy ears that she almost never shifts out of. She scampers up and down Monty’s arms as he talks excitedly to Jamie about his newest comic book, and Koz copies her form as a squirrel, though he doesn’t do so much scampering. Pitch stays in Jamie’s hair, whispering barely loud enough for Jamie to hear about how ridiculous his brother is.

            Monty introduces Jamie to a girl named Pippa, and Koz is introduced to a blue chameleon named Medwin who later turns into a sparrow, then they meet Caleb and Claude and the ever-shifting Irene and Arina, and there’s a scary girl who everyone calls Cupcake and her daemon named Esmond and no one wants to talk to either of them. There are other kids too but Jamie doesn’t become friends with very many of them.

Nobody’s seen Pitch yet.

 

            Jamie is still five and he’s been in kindergarten for eight weeks, and Pitch is always in his hair or in his pocket or under his shirt because Jamie learned a long time ago that people thought he was weird for having two daemons and he doesn’t want his new friends to think he’s weird. Koz wonders one day if it really counts as being friends if no one knows about Pitch, and Pitch doesn’t think it counts. Jamie scowls at both of them even though he thinks they’re probably right. But he still asks Pitch to stay hidden, just for a little while.

            When someone notices Pitch for the first time, it’s completely an accident and Jamie’s scared that his friends won’t like him any more after he trips playing tag and two rats go tumbling into the grass instead of one.

            The other kids are confused, and a few get a little bit scared and a few get scared enough that they get mean, but Jamie’s friends, once over their confusion, declare Jamie’s twin daemons ‘cool’ and Claude and Irene get put in time out that day for kicking a kid who insulted Pitch. Jamie is grateful, and so are Pitch and Koz, and they say so, but they still think their friends could’ve handled things better. They’ve always been wise beyond their years.

 

            Jamie Bennett is six years old, almost seven, and his aunt walks him into the hospital room where his mother and new sister are waiting. Mr. Bennett was never around much anyway but he left for good a few months ago so he isn't there to see Sophie, which Jamie doesn't think is much of a loss for his sister. Accipiter has already named the chickadee curled in little Sophie’s hair; Aster. Koz loves Sophie and Aster immediately, but Pitch is bitter that the babies will be getting more attention now. Jamie is torn, but he does love Sophie, even when a week later he hasn’t gotten any sleep because his sister is always crying and Aster is now a tiny grey rabbit kit who squeaks along with his human counterpart.

 

            Jamie is eight and Sophie is not quite three and it’s the end of September and Jamie doesn’t have a Halloween costume yet. But then their mother takes them to the library and Pitch finds a book of Norse myths for Jamie. Jamie gets a wonderful idea.

            Then it’s Halloween and Jamie has an eye-patch and plastic golden armor and a spear and he’s been introducing himself as ‘Odin’ all day while the two ravens on his shoulders whisper important secrets from all over the Nine Realms in his ears and say “Huginn” and “Muninn” as introduction when Jamie is asked who he is. Everyone in the neighborhood is used to Pitchiner and Kozmotis by now, but a few people purse their lips at the daemons when they speak to another human than their own. A lot of people in Burgess are still kind of old fashioned, Jamie thinks.

 

             Jamie is nine. There’s a snowball fight and Jamie isn’t sure who started it but it’s a lot of fun until Pippa hits Cupcake. Esmond is suddenly a dog that looks more like a wolf and Cupcake is growling right along with him until another two snowballs come from nowhere and nail human _and_ daemon right between the eyes. Then Cupcake is laughing and Esmond is a yappy little terrier and the snowball fight continues with one more friend than before. Jamie goes on an unexpected sled ride through Burgess, with Koz and Pitch both bats and clinging to his vest for dear life.

            The ride ends with Jamie crashing into a snowbank, and then there’s a boy with white hair who’s also a witch and his daemon is a Siberian flying squirrel named Neva. Jack is the boy’s name, and he’s three hundred years old and possibly older, though he doesn’t remember if he is. Jack is very good at keeping himself invisible, and he uses this skill to stay out of the eye of adults, especially human adults who wouldn’t take kindly to a homeless trickster and witch inhabiting their town.

            Jamie asks Jack if he knows a witch named Katherine Shalazar.

Jack and Jamie catch Ms. Shalazar as she’s leaving the kindergarten one day. Two witches are introduced and the subject of missing memories is brought up. Katherine’s clan, as it turns out, includes herself, her boyfriend, her family, her friend Sandy, and her best friend Toothiana, who is a witch who specializes in memories. Jack is invited to meet with Toothiana, and he gladly accepts, and a week later finds Jack and Neva curled melancholically in the bows of a tree behind Jamie’s house, mourning a human family long dead.

 

            Jamie Bennett is eleven years old and Sophie Bennett is five, and Aster is much too young to have officially settled yet but he strongly favors the form of a grey rabbit, and Koz and Pitch haven’t settled yet either and they don’t strongly favor anything except the colors that got them their names over a decade ago.

            Jack is part of the Shalazar clan, has been for a while, and he’s finally got the family he never had in those three hundred years alone. Katherine’s wedding finds her brother Nicholas as the best man, but Jack is a guest of honor which he’s perfectly fine with. Stuffy ceremonies have never been Jack’s thing. When the vows are finished Katherine grins and pulls her now-husband Nightlight into a kiss, and the Bennett family is there to clap just as loud as anyone. That is the first day Jamie ever sees Nightlight’s daemon; when Pitch points out Kailash to Jamie during the reception and the boy catches sight of a white weasel resting peacefully on the goose’s back.

 

            Jamie is fifteen when Kozmotis finally settles as a hawk; a black merlin, to be specific. Pitch settles two weeks after his twin, as a Bombay cat with bright yellow eyes. Cupcake laughs when she’s told, at the irony of Jamie’s twin daemons settling as such contradictory animals. Neva is unfazed by how most of her friends seem to be animals that could be considered predators if they weren’t all daemons.

 

            Jamie is eighteen and Sophie is twelve when Aster settles, though no one really notices that much since he’s always that little grey bunny anyway. He protests loudly and rudely whenever anyone calls him cute.

 

            Jamie is nineteen starting ten minutes ago and he watches the sunrise with a hawk perched on his shoulder and a cat curled in his lap.

            “Happy birthday.” Pitch says, probably mostly to himself if Jamie had to guess.

            “Happy birthday.” Jamie replies anyway, and Koz echoes him, and even now no one’s quite sure why Jamie has two daemons, but he supposes it doesn’t really matter why, only that he does.

            Jamie Bennett has two daemons and he wouldn’t give either of them up for anything.


End file.
